Cooking therapy from a former travel nurse

Miracle Lasagna January 27, 2011

Why is my lasagna a miracle? Well, for one, it is Weight Watchers reasonable. Secondly (and most unbelievably), it has vegetables that went undetected by my husband, who NEVER eats vegetables. Oh sure, he picked the big chunks of vegetable out, but the ones in the sauce actually made it where no vegetable has gone before. I found the recipe in a special issue of Cuisine Magazine called Cuisine Lite. I made one or two modifications to suit my taste, so feel free to do the same.

Total WW points for one serving (and the servings are pretty large) is 10 points! Bonus is that there are so many vegetables in there, so you’ll get to track all those power foods!

Three-Cheese Turkey Lasagna

adapted from Cuisine Lite

9 dry lasagna sheets

large container of baby spinach

3/4 pound ground turkey breast

1 tsp. canola oil

1/2 cup each chopped onion and carrot

12 ounces mushrooms, divided and chopped into medium pieces

4 cloves garlic

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/2 yellow pepper, diced

1/2 zucchini, diced

1 can low-sodium diced tomatoes, drained (14.5 ounces)

1 Tbs. dried Italian herbs

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/4 tsp. black pepper

kosher salt, to taste

1 can low-sodium tomato sauce (8 oz), divided

1 1/2 cups 2% cottage cheese

1 1/2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella, divided (8 oz)

1 egg

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan Reggiano

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add lasagna sheets to the boiling water. Cook for 8 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.

Brown the turkey in a large non-stick skillet coated with non-stick spray, over medium-high heat. Mince onion, carrot, mushrooms, and garlic in a food processor or Ninja blender, add it to browned turkey in a skillet. Cook until vegetables soften, 5 minutes. Stir in diced tomatoes, dried herbs, pepper flakes, and black pepper. Simmer for 3 minutes.

In a large skillet, saute remaining mushrooms (cut into medium pieces), red and yellow bell pepper, and zucchini with 1 tsp olive oil, until browned and tender. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Remove from heat.

Spread 2 Tbsp. tomato sauce in the bottom of an 8-inch, 2 quart square baking dish. Add remaining tomato sauce to bolognese in skillet, stir until combined. Remove the bolognese from heat and set aside.

Pulse cottage cheese, 1 cup mozzarella, and the egg in a food processor until smooth; set aside.

Layer 4 lasagna sheets over the tomato sauce, overlapping sheets and cutting ends off to fit. Reserve cut pieces for top layer. Spread 1/3 of the bolognese over lasagna sheets; top with half of the cheese sauce followed by half of the vegetable/spinach mix. Repeat layers and top with another 1/3 of the bolognese, remaining cheese sauce and remaining veggie/spinach mix.. Top with remaining whole lasagna sheet and cut lasagna pieces, remaining bolognese, remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella and the Parmesan. Bake the lasagna for 25 minutes until the topping is browned. Remove from the oven and let rest for 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Cut lasagna into 6 servings. Enjoy!

Notes: We were not able to use all of the cheese and sauce because our square baker was not tall enough. The result was still plenty filling and plenty tasty.